Biography

Head of the School of Social Sciences,

Professor of Archaeology

Research | Current

Archaeology: Melanesia, Solomon Islands

Processes of social transformation

Geoarchaeology

My current research focuses on the archaeology of the Solomon Islands where I have worked for the last 25 years. I have worked extensively on establishing the foundation prehistory of the Western Solomons which has included research on all the major islands of the Western Province. This research has been funded by grants from the Marsden Fund and the National Geographic Society. Most recently I have turned my attention to research in the Eastern Solomons which has included work on Santa Ana and in 2012 on Santa Cruz in Temotu Province. On Santa Cruz I have revisited and excavated the early Lapita site of Nanggu which has been considered to be the oldest site of human occupation in Remote Oceania which is the area south and east of the main Solomon Islands.. This new work is revising our understanding of the process of settlement of Remote Oceania. I have also recently collborated on two Marsden projects with geophysicists at the University of Auckland and Victoria on using dated archaeological samples to improve our understanding of changes in the geomagentic field in the Western Pacific during the Late Holocene.

Postgraduate supervision

I supervise PhD students in the archaeology of Island Melanesia and archaeological science.